Heartache (Continued)

In this, to-be-continued edition, I wanted to follow-up on the discussion of last week where I explained that conventional thinking on the cause of heart disease is being challenged.  In case you missed, everyone still agrees that ischemia (a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the heart) is the cause of heart attack.  What is being called into question is mechanism that the build-up of cholesterol in the coronary arteries is the major cause of this ischemia.  The new research is showing that this is merely a symptom and the real cause has to do with the nervous system; in particular a lack of nerve flow from the Vagus nerve.

The Vagus nerve is considered the major parasympathetic nerve in the body that regulates the function of most every major organ in the body.  Your nervous system is broken into two parts – the parasympathetic and the sympathetic.  This sympathetic is more commonly considered your fight-flight nervous system that speeds up your heart and lungs as well as other organ function for survival needs.  The parasympathetic does the opposite and serves to slow down the heart and lungs.  It’s easiest to think of the sympathetic as the gas and the parasympathetic as the brakes.  Different lifestyle factors affect the “tone” of the nervous system and shift us into fight-flight mode just like changing the tuning of a guitar.  These factors are the standard poor habits including chronic stress, lack of sleep, sugar, trans-fats, smoking, and processed grains.  When we stay in a revved-up or sympathetic state, adrenaline levels go up and the metabolism of the heart muscle shifts from fat fuel sources to sugar metabolism.  This will result in a dramatic increase in lactic acid production in the muscle cells of the heart.  This creates an acidosis in the muscle that prevents calcium from entering into the cells effectively, thereby making the heart muscle cells less able to contract.  These cells begin to swell and malfunction which is the basic mechanism of ischemia to the heart cells or more commonly, “heart attack."

Your take-home on this should be that there is much more to heart disease than plaque build-up of the coronary arteries.  Cholesterol is an effect, not a cause!  When all we do to prevent heart disease is take drugs to lower cholesterol, the result is death from heart attack with better looking cholesterol numbers.  What we should be doing is engaging in stress-reducing activity such as exercise and meditation, embracing loving relationships, increasing the fruits and vegetables in our diet, drinking water in place of sugar drinks, making adequate sleep a priority, and taking time to be grateful for what we have rather than stressing over what we don’t have.  These are the very activities that move us out of fight-flight and into a more parasympathetic state that has been proven to be healing to the heart (and also cholesterol).   So if you’re still looking for some New Year’s resolutions, there are about seven options for you to choose from.

It’s a Heartache

I recently found an article that challenged everything that we thought we knew about the cause of heart disease and heart attacks.  Since one out of every two Americans will die of heart disease, this caught my attention.  Traditionally, we are taught to believe that heart attacks occur due to problems in the coronary (heart) arteries.  But new research is suggesting that the problems likely happen as a result of event happening in the muscle of the heart known as the myocardium.

So, heart disease is caused by a lack of oxygen to the heart muscle from a buildup of plaque in the arteries as a result of excessive cholesterol, right? And preventing heart disease comes from opening those arteries by reducing cholesterol and various emergency procedures such as coronary bypass, stents, or angioplasty?  Well, that’s what most of the free world believes.  However, doctors and researchers alike are starting to question this conventional thinking due to the results of a couple recent studies.  First, angiogram studies, where radiographic dye is injected into the coronary arteries and observed, shows that blood gets to the heart even where the major coronary arteries are completely blocked off.  Another 2003 study conducted at the Mayo clinic concluded that bypass surgeries, stents, and angioplasty can indeed relieve symptoms of heart disease such as chest pain, but that they do not prevent further heart attacks.  The explanation for this is that shortly after birth, a normal heart develops an extensive network of what are called collateral blood vessels that will provide numerous alternate routes for blood flow.  Think of this as taking the scenic route when the highway is blocked.  In fact, the body is so smart that even when a blockage does develop in a coronary artery, these collateral arteries can grow new, at any age, to bypass and reroute the blockage.  Nobody is trying to say that high cholesterol, especially the inflammatory LDL’s is a good thing; they’re just saying that this is not the end of the story with heart disease.  If this were true, don’t you think that, with all the cholesterol drugs that have been given out along with all the emergency and preventive procedures performed, there would have been a dent in heart disease over the last 30-40 years?

So what is really going on?  The researchers performing these newer studies believe it comes back to the effect the nervous system is having on the heart and particularly the rate of your heart.  Your nervous system is broken into a fight/flight or sympathetic side as well as a parasympathetic side that is considered to be active when we sleep, heal, and digest (or relax).  The major parasympathetic nerve (the Vagus) comes off the brainstem and serves to slow and relax the heart.  Multiple studies have shown that a decrease of parasympathetic nerve flow results in ischemic heart disease where the oxygen is being cut off.  Next week, I would like to discuss how this happens and what the real-life factors are contributing to this #1 killer in America.

Your Choices Matter

Over the years, I've discussed the process of epigenetics on several occasions in this column.  In case you've forgotten, epigenetics is really a more evolved perception and understanding of genetics.  In genetics, we get our genes from our parents and whatever hand we are dealt is what we get to live with throughout life.  Epigenetics says, yes, we do have genes passed to us from our parents (and their parents) but those genes can adapt and change based on what environment they are exposed to.  In epigenetics, we refer to the expression of our genes.  The scientific journals have been loaded with research on epigenetics over the last decade and I wanted to share some new discoveries with you this week.

Most of the medical researchers now believe that our genetics make up 20-30% of our outcomes when it comes to health versus disease, but that our lifestyle makes up the rest.  This concept that lifestyle will alter gene expression is the very definition of epigenetics.  Even though we may not always act like it, I believe we all have an understanding that what we eat, drink, and breathe into our lungs as well as how we exercise, sleep, and think has an impact as to whether we will develop diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or virtually every other disease.  I hope we recognize this to be true to ourselves – if we continually expose our bodies to a toxic environment, our genes will begin to adapt to that environment and the end result will be chronic illness.  That’s what happens to us, but what about future generations.  A recent article in the journal Science reported that yes, we truly are what we eat, but also that the nutrition of the parents, even before conception, will influence the health of future generations through changes in DNA.  Oops!  The study went on to show that exposure to excessive calories by a grandfather (before he started having children) is linked to increased risk of stroke and diabetes for his children and that this risk is passed on for multiple generations.  The scientists in the study explained that our DNA “remembers lifestyle insults.”  Other studies have suggested that these lifestyle factors involved in epigenetics affects 7-8 generations.  In our culture, we tend to believe it’s the mother who needs to stay healthy before and during pregnancy to ensure better development of the fetus.  However, studies like this one are showing that the father’s lifestyle and environmental factors before conception are more important than even that of the female.  For instance, we know that the father’s body mass will have a greater impact on the health of his children and a father who smokes is more likely to have kids with increased body mass.  Again, these are factors that are important even before the baby is conceived!

In our 8 Weeks to Wellness program, we teach that your life will begin to change when you recognize that your choices matter.  I hope this information drives this home to you.  Please recognize, that epigenetics goes both ways.  Not only will poor lifestyle change gene expression and have detrimental effects, but healthy lifestyle choices will improve DNA expression and result in genes that are driven to health and vitality.  In a very real sense, everything we eat, drink, and think is moving us (and our ancestry) either toward disease and away from health or hopefully our choices are moving us toward health and away from disease.

Fake Fats

I haven’t picked on trans-fats in a while.  While it’s been well recognized that these fake, unnatural fats have been linked to heart disease for some time, very recent research from the American Heart Association shows a link between trans-fats and advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s as well.

For decades it was the saturated animal fats that were thought to be the culprits to chronic disease.  So for years, fats were reduced and removed from foods while things like butter and lard were replaced with margarine and vegetable oil.  This strategy simply has not worked and it’s contributed to millions of early deaths.  The reason why this didn’t work and what you really need to know about trans-fats is that they are synthetic and they prevent the production of a chemical in your body known as prostacyclin which is necessary to keep blood flowing.  As a result, trans-fats cause clogging of the artery walls.  Likewise these oils including vegetable, soybean, corn, and sunflower oils when heated oxidize (or break down).  This reaction causes clotting and hardening of the arteries.  It is this same oxidation that is thought to contribute to the plaques in the brain that are related to Alzheimer’s.  In order to avoid trans-fats, you need to avoid any foods containing or cooked in hydrogenated vegetable oil.  This means avoiding all fried foods such as french fries and many other highly processed foods including chips, cookies, crackers, and cereals.  Even though these pseudo-foods have become the staple of the American diet, the good news is that the body can eliminate trans-fats in about a month when we quit putting them in our pie holes.  This makes eating out very difficult and fast-food almost impossible.  The best strategy is cooking natural whole foods at home.

Please understand that I am not advocating going fat-free.  Your body needs fat for brain function and hormone production!  You just want to reduce and eliminate these toxic fats and replace them with natural fats such as organic butter, avocados, fish oil, coconut and coconut oil, raw nuts (almonds, pecans, and macadamia) and seeds.  And even organic egg yolks and grass-fed meats are on the healthy list.  Another factor to be aware of is that statin drugs for cholesterol also increase the risk of dementia/Alzheimer’s because they deplete the brain of essential fatty acids and coenzyme Q10.  However, when you replace the trans-fats with healthy fats, cut sugar, and add in some exercise and stress reduction, most (if not all) people would not have a need for statin drugs to begin with.  So if you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution, consider going no trans-fats for a month and see what happens.

Vitamin Vindicated

Do you know someone with an autoimmune disease?  These diseases occur when your immune system turns against your own body instead of fighting pathogens such as bacteria and viruses. Autoimmune diseases affect different areas of the body and include illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Chron’s, psoriasis, Grave’s, type I diabetes, amongst numerous other ailments.  Little is known about how or why autoimmune diseases occur and once diagnosed, you’re looking primarily at management of the disease as treatment is very limited.  At a conference recently, I saw a speaker presenting some research that suggests vitamin D is important in preventing these diseases and I went looking for the link that makes this possible.

From what I can find, there are a few things going on here.  First of all, just like any disease process, it is agreed that autoimmune disease starts with inflammation and this inflammation is directly linked to lifestyle (diet, stress, and exercise).  In particular, an inflammatory diet rich in grains, gluten, and sugars will increase inflammation in the gut or intestines.  This inflammation creates swelling in the cellular lining of the gut.  This lining is important because it serves to allow favorable nutrients to pass from the intestine into the bloodstream while keeping unfavorable toxins from getting in.  When the lining becomes swollen, the gut becomes “leaky” allowing the toxins to pass through.  This is known as leaky gut disease and is associated with inflammatory bowel diseases.  The resulting toxicity of the blood gets into the cells, causing damage and putting the immune system in an alarmed state.  Over time this increased immune state can lead to autoimmune disorders.  It turns out that vitamin D plays a critical role in preserving the integrity of the intestinal lining thereby reducing inflammation and allowing the gut to heal appropriately.  Other research at Harvard and similar studies from Oxford found that vitamin D helps regulate the genes that are involved with autoimmune disease as well as many different cancers.  My personal belief is that it is likely the toxins in the blood from the swollen gut that get to the cells and alter the genes in the first place.

There are still professionals out there that tell people taking vitamins is a waste of time and money.  They clearly don’t follow their own research.  The blood test to check for your vitamin D levels costs about 35 bucks and the vitamin itself is one of the cheapest ones out there.  Over the years, I've shared several other reasons why D is so important, but if, for some reason, you were still on the fence, I hope this new information will motivate you to get your levels checked.  Remember that we get D naturally from sunlight in the summer, but it is estimated that 50% of the adults and children out there are deficient.  Do yourself a favor and get yourself and your family checked and supplement until your levels are optimal.

Giving Thanks

As a chiropractor, I’m always challenging people to look to the cause of their pain, ailment, or illness because unless you uncover the cause, you’ll always be treating and managing the symptoms.  The World Health Organization has reported that the ultimate cause of any loss of health is excessive amounts of physical, chemical, and/or emotional stress beyond the body’s natural ability to adapt.  Research suggests that emotional stress is the single biggest factor of these different stressors.  In my discussions with people, I certainly find that many are dealing with excessive amounts of this emotional stress resulting with increased pain, sleep disorders, anxiety and depression, digestive disorders, amongst other health problems.  In preparation for Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a reminder of a strategy on how to reduce the effects of our daily stress.

First of all, I’d like to emphasize that we weren’t born into stress.  Instead, we experience different stress, and over time we practice this stress until we get very good at it.  In time, our conscious stress (what we perceive and what we choose to focus on) becomes subconscious stress.  In subconscious stress, our brain is functioning in a revved-up, fight/flight state that is appropriate for survival (fighting a bear) but not appropriate for every-day life.  When our brain is in this state, it changes our physiology through our nervous system and our hormones and our organs start to function differently. Eventually, this can manifest as almost any disease out there.  So we must interrupt the stress response!  Physical exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer, and other disciplines have been proven to decrease stress.  But given the season, I would like to encourage you to just try another strategy that can reduce the subconscious stress.  This strategy is using a gratitude journal.

Science has proven that our brain cannot be in a state of stress and gratitude at the same time.  This is why I like to call, gratitude the universal solvent of all emotional stresses.  All you need is a small notebook or journal and a pen by your bed stand.  In the mornings, before your feet hit the floor, you simply write down five things that you’re grateful for.  These can be big or small.  This is to allow you to at least begin your day in this state with the goal of staying in a state of gratitude as long as possible.  Then at night, right before your head hits the pillow, you read some of the things you’ve written over the mornings until you feel like you are back in that state of gratitude.  This will work best if you stay in this state and don’t let any other thoughts enter your head until you’re asleep.  In doing this, you will be retraining the subconscious mind to be in this state rather than a state of anxiety, depression, anger, etc.  This is a simple strategy that will render results over time.  Give it a try and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Longevity

Of all the subjects written in this column for the last six years, I suppose more articles have been written about longevity than any other subject.  This must make it appear to the reader that I’m obsessed with living forever.  On the contrary, I simply believe that with longevity comes a more fulfilling life through better health and vitality.  I also believe that success leaves footprints.  If we can follow the footprints by those with longevity, we learn how enjoy better health.  Fortunately, there are known predictors of longevity that can be measured.

Some of the keys to long life I've covered in the past.  For instance, maintaining low insulin levels is critical.  This means eating a diet low in sugar while high in fiber and low glycemic foods such as vegetables.  Physical exercise is also key to keeping insulin levels at bay.  The number one predictor of longevity is body composition.  This means keeping your percentage of muscle high while keeping your fat levels at a minimum.  Just like insulin, maintaining muscle requires regular physical exercise, a low-sugar diet with adequate high quality protein.  But don’t forget about stress!  High levels of emotional stress will elevate insulin and make it difficult if not impossible to build muscle at the expense of fat.  At a training seminar for our 8 Weeks to Wellness program, one of our presenters spoke about another marker of health and longevity – Phase Angle.  In a sentence, phase angle measures the health of our individual cells.  Our bodies are a community of about 100 trillion cells and we’re only as healthy as these individual components.  If our cells are sick, we are sick or heading that way.  Phase angle is measured by a piece of equipment called a bio-impedance machine.  It’s simply an electrical device that measures how quickly a micro-current travels through the body.  This current travels through our body fluids, our muscles, our fat, and our individual cells.  As the current travels through the cells, it is slowed (mostly by the cell membrane) and it bounces through the cells.  The feedback from this current will tell us if the cell wall (membrane) is healthy, if the cell is full of fluid, or dehydrated, and if the electrolytes are in balance.  A low phase angle indicates that there is cell death occurring or breakdown of the cell membrane.  Cell membranes are broken down by oxidative stress and inflammation.  This is simply poor lifestyle (toxins, sedentary lifestyle, stress, inflammatory diet).  One particular toxin that damages cell membranes is arachidonic acid.  Where do we find this?  In all processed grains!  One of the things that helps increase phase angle is proper fatty acids – in particular those found in fish oil.  Vitamin E has also proven beneficial.  There is no drug that improves phase angle; only healthy lifestyle including regular physical exercise and proper diet and nutrition.  By now, I hope you’re seeing the trend regarding health and longevity.  If you’re intrigued by your body composition or this phase angle, it is something we now do for every client upon their initial exam as part of their Wellness Score.  We’re offering this score at a discount for the month of November for just $27.

Seasonal Solutions

With the colder, wet weather, I've been seeing more people with flare-ups of chronic problems and complaints of various aches and pains.  While, I suppose on one hand this is good for business, on the other hand, there are some simple solutions to deal with these aggravations that we all should consider as the seasons change.

In following this column, you should already know that it’s been proven that low pressure fronts in the weather do indeed increase the inflammation associated with arthritis, allergies, sinus problems, and general aches and pains.  Likewise, you should also know that inflammation has been implicated with pain as well as every disease known to man.  If you can win the war on inflammation, you feel better and live a longer, healthier life!  So, if the crappy weather increases inflammatory problems, how do you overcome this, outside of moving to a less threatening environment?  The obvious solutions are the same lifestyle strategies that help any health problem – eat better, mover better (exercise), and think better by reducing stress and getting proper sleep.  These should always be your long-term strategies.  However, there are a few short-term approaches that can give you some quick relief.  At this time of year you should always think about taking or increasing your vitamin D.  The only way to truly know if you’re low in vitamin D is through blood testing, but it is generally accepted that D can be safely taken at 4-5000 I.U.s per day especially through the winter months until we begin getting our D naturally from sunlight again in the spring.  Vitamin D is particularly important for dealing with seasonal affective disorder, more commonly known as the “winter blues.”  Another common solution is fish oil and vitamin C.  The C and the omega 3’s from fish oil are necessary ingredients for all the steroid hormones produced by the adrenal glands.  These are your body’s natural anti-inflammatories.  In fact, 3000 milligrams of vitamin C have been proven to be as effective in reducing inflammation as prescription medications without the nasty side-effects on the kidneys and liver.  There are also some less scientific “folky” methods of reducing inflammatory pain.  Possibly the oldest remedy is organic apple cider vinegar.  While the reason for its results are largely unknown, cider vinegar can be very effective at reducing joint and arthritic pain and some studies have even shown that it reduces blood sugar and insulin levels.  It’s thought that 2 tablespoons of vinegar in the morning diluted in water or juice is the best way to achieve results.  Vinegar is very acidic so make certain you dilute and use the dark, organic variety.  In the end, reducing inflammation has much to do with antioxidants.  These are the little chemicals that fight against free radical damage.  Fruits and vegetables are your primary source of antioxidants, but as I've mentioned before, green tea is a super anti-oxidant.  Use a combination of these strategies along with a healthy lifestyle and this should help you get through another long cold winter much more easily.

Brain Boost

One of the very first articles I wrote for this column was about the benefits of physical exercise for improving memory and preventing disorders such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.  The good news is that nearly four years later, this information is still true.  In fact, some newer research reported in a recent book titled, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain shows that exercise is absolutely vital for memory and proper brain function.

It wasn’t that long ago that the physiology books and med-school instructors taught that loss of brain cells was permanent and irreversible.  Fortunately, this was simply not true.  In the past, I’ve shared the research that emotional stress will shrink the cells of the hippocampus (considered to be the memory center of the brain).  One recent study proved that regular exercise will actually enlarge this memory center by 1-2% per year throughout life!  If you’re wondering how exercise can do all of this, the experts believe it’s because of the increased blood flow to the brain.  They also believe that physical exertion develops new nerves and increase nerve-protecting compounds.  Finally, numerous studies have shown that exercise alters the damaging proteins in the brain that are directly linked to Alzheimer’s.  Researchers also believe that you don’t have to dedicate large amounts of time to get a brain boost – as little as 20 minute workouts can improve long-term memory.  In one study of elementary students, they found that 40 minutes of exercise every day increased IQ by nearly four points on average and the fittest students scored 30% higher on IQ testing than average students.  In adult studies, employees who exercise regularly are about 15% more efficient at their jobs.

In most of these studies, it appears that the type of exercise doesn’t really matter as long as you’re getting appropriate exertion to get the heart pumping and increase blood flow to the brain.  Studies involving weight training, walking, running, and other forms all generated similar results.  The key is to know your target heart rate and get up to 90-100% of your target several times throughout the workout.  The only catch to all of these studies is that if you are looking to improve the brain, the exercise needs to be regular and routine.  In a recent rat study, they found that stopping exercise for just three weeks duration resulted in the nerve cells of the brain to begin to decrease and memory to suffer.  In a second similar study where the rats had only been exercising for a short time (10 weeks) followed by three weeks of inactivity, they determined that the benefits of the exercise were lost and the memory and nerve development was the same as those rats that had always been inactive.  The moral of the story is that exercise needs to be done and it needs to be done regularly!  But if you’re worried about aging gracefully and preventing the emotional hardship that goes with losing memory and dealing with diseases such as Alzheimer’s, this information is still great news and should give you hope and motivation.

Disc Damage

Several people have been asking me about disc problems lately and it seems that more people than ever are developing this spinal problem.  The intervertebral discs are cartilage shock absorbers that are found between nearly every bone of the spine.  They function to allow the spine to move and also to create space between the vertebrae allowing room for the nerves to exit the spinal cord and communicate with the body.  The discs were built to last – they are inherently one of the toughest structures in the body.  So why are disc problems so common?

The discs are thought to be like a jelly donut with a tough outer ring surrounding a gel portion on the inside called the nucleus.  This nucleus is what can bulge out placing pressure on the delicate nerves.  The problem with the discs is that at around 18 years of age, the outer ring hardens preventing blood flow from getting into the discs.  This is what makes disc damage so difficult and why they don’t heal very well.  The only definitive way to know if you have a disc problem is through imaging such as an MRI.  However, disc problems are accompanied by numerous symptoms including spinal pain, radiating pain or numbness into the arms/legs, increased pain when coughing, sneezing, or “bearing down” to lift something or even when having a bowel movement, and muscle weakness.  It’s important to realize that every one of these symptoms can occur without disc damage from misalignment of the spine or also from pressure on the nerves from different muscle imbalances or even arthritic pressure (stenosis).  That’s why an MRI is the best source of determining what’s going on.  It’s also important to know that discs can heal!  The problem is that because of the limited blood flow, healing can take 6-12 months.  The most common methods of treatment for disc damage include traction, anti-inflammatory medications, steroid injections, chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, and generally surgery as a last resort.  In any form, the treatment of these injuries is no fun.  That’s why, like everything else, prevention is the key!

Like any form of degeneration in the body, disc damage is related to inflammation and excessive wear-and-tear.  When looking at prevention, you need to consider all components – the physical, chemical, and emotional.  Emotional stress increases inflammation and impacts our inflammatory hormones.  It also increases our sensitivity to pain.  Exercise, yoga, meditation, and prayer are all proven forms of stress reduction.  Our internal chemistry is a key to healthy discs so we must watch what we put into our bodies.  Smoking is known to be one of the very worst factors for discs because it pulls minerals out of the cartilage making them inherently weak and brittle.  Likewise, an inflammatory diet consisting of sugars, processed carbs, and trans-fats is a recipe for any degenerative process such as disc damage.  Your steroid hormones help reduce inflammation, but to produce these chemicals, you require omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin C.  This is why proper supplementation including fish oil and a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is key.  Finally, the physical:  from everything I’ve studied, excessive weight, lack of exercise, poor posture, and prolonged sitting is torture for the intervertebral disc.  This is also the cause for spinal subluxation (misalignment) which is proven to place imbalanced pressure on discs.  Maintaining proper spinal alignment through posture, regular chiropractic adjustments, and physical exercise is yet another way to protect these delicate tissues and prevent damage over time.

Fed Up

I know that many of you have had the opportunity see the movie Fed Up.  In fact, nearly 100 people came to our community showing of the film at the Red Bicycle a couple weeks ago.  If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie focuses on the American obesity epidemic and how our modern diet is directly linked to the chronic disease that afflicts approximately 80% of our society as the primary cause of death. 

We've always been told that the solution to weight loss is to eat less and exercise more.  This implies that obesity is simply a matter of calories in versus calories out.  But what if not all calories are created equally?  Obviously exercise is necessary for better health and it should be looked at similar to getting a vital nutrient.  But if you’re trying to exercise yourself out of obesity or excess weight while eating the wrong diet, you’re fighting an uphill battle that you will never win.  Modern science and the rules of physiology prove that the quality of the calories ingested is what really matters.  For instance, when you take in a healthy, natural carbohydrate such as a vegetable or most fruits there are calories from sugar.  But those calories are bound to fiber that slows the release of sugar into the bloodstream thereby keeping insulin levels low and allowing those calories to be burned more slowly.  This is normal physiology from healthy food.  However, when you ingest the sugar that’s in junk food such as soda or candy or even a processed carbohydrate such as white bread, snack foods, or most cereals, there’s not much fiber there.  This causes a large surge of sugar that raises blood sugar, increases insulin, and immediately gets sent to the liver to be stored as cholesterol and fat.  This is unhealthy physiology that leads to obesity and chronic illness such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke.  It’s all about the sugar including the processed sugars such as high fructose corn syrup.  Believe or not, the same phenomenon happens with the fructose found in fruit juice and even with artificial sweeteners found in diet drinks and foods.  Unfortunately about 80% of the food you find in the grocery store has added sugar or artificial sugars.  As a result, between 1977 and 2000, Americans have doubled their intake of sugar.

Hopefully, this is all impactful information to you, and I could go on.  But how do you make change and how do you get your family to begin cutting the sugar?  The first step is to begin planning your meals in advance and make a real commitment to get back into your kitchen and start cooking real food – this is the stuff that is found on the perimeters of the grocery stores and rarely sold in a cardboard box or plastic bag!  We’re doing a couple other things to help you with this.  First go to our Facebook page titled “Rivertown Fed Up Challenge.”  This site will support/teach you how to eliminate sugar from your diet for 10 days and see what changes you experience.  Secondly, we’re working with North Madison Christian Church to show Fed Up a second time and follow it up with an expert physician who will help teach you how to make change.  This will be happening in the coming months and I’ll share the details once we have everything finalized.

Stress Solutions

After over 280 issues of this column, it can be a struggle to find new things to write on.  Fortunately I have several avid readers that forward me material they believe people should know about.  This week a dear friend sent me a new article on adrenal fatigue.  As I’ve indicated in the past, this is a phenomenon that I believe is a much bigger issue than most health professionals give credit.  Our healthcare system is so busy treating the symptoms that result from adrenal fatigue that they never get time to uncover the ultimate cause.  But if you know what to look for, you can often self-diagnose adrenal problems and address them before they require more aggressive symptomatic treatment.

Your adrenals are thought to be your stress organs because they produce and release the stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin.  They also produce sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, some dopamine and about 30 different steroid hormones.  These hormones are why your adrenal glands are intimately tied to the function of your thyroid, pituitary, kidneys, reproductive system and even your brain function.  But just like any muscle or other organ, your adrenals can become fatigued through overuse.  In the case of these vital glands, the stresses that tax the adrenals include: lack of sleep, sugar and processed foods, stimulants such as caffeine and nicotine, excessive activity (work, overtraining), and of course emotional trauma and stress.  All these factors move us into a stress physiology more commonly known as fight/flight mode.  This is a good thing if you need to fight or escape from a tiger, but it’s a terrible thing on a day-to-day basis.  There are many signs and symptoms that you might be dealing with adrenal fatigue.  These include: arthritic tendencies, body aches/pains, extreme fatigue, low blood sugar and low blood pressure, light-headedness and dizziness upon rising from sitting or lying down, salt and sugar cravings, sleep disturbances, infertility and reduced sex drive, hair loss, depression, migraines, menstrual difficulties, blurred vision and severe allergies.  Of course these are merely symptoms and many of these can be tied to other health problems as well.  The preferred adrenal test can be done through blood or saliva testing to check the cortisol and DHEA levels.

Like most any health problem, when treating adrenal imbalances, the cause is the cure.  There are several strategies that help support the adrenal glands such as B-vitamins (especially B5), Omega 3 fatty acids such as fish oil, vitamin C, magnesium, and various other herbs.  We use a product called Alkadrenergy that works particularly well.  However, unless you desire to take these products for the rest of your life, you must ultimately address the lifestyle factors at the root of the problem.  Much of this involves changing your routines.  For instance, you should go to bed at the same time and try to get close to eight hours of sleep each night.  Exercise is critical to reduce stress, but don’t over-train.  If you’re stressed with your work or personal life, make time for stress relieving activities such as yoga or meditation.  Some people just need to learn to say no and not do everything for everybody!  Fruits and vegetables actually have a sedative effect that will help relieve the fight/flight response whereas most processed foods and sugars feed it.  Likewise, consuming quality fats and proteins such as raw nuts and coconut oil can be helpful as well.  In some cases, adrenal imbalance is caused by food allergies and going sugar-free or gluten-free is the best solution.  Regardless of whether you’re suffering from adrenal fatigue or not, stress is indeed the “silent killer” and all of these lifestyle and stress-relieving strategies are helpful for promoting a greater state of health and wellness in addition to relieving adrenal stress.

Burning Fat

Last week I discussed the importance of body composition and that maintaining adequate muscle over fat is considered to be the most important factor in longevity and aging gracefully.  This week I happened to find an article that discussed the two most important methods of improving this body composition by reducing fat.  Obviously, these methods are diet and exercise, but this particular article included some specific strategies and associated science to get the best results.

Regarding exercise, when it comes to improving your fat-to-muscle ratio, all the research agrees that high intensity interval training (HIIT) is the optimal method.  As I’ve written in the past, HIIT involves warming up for two minutes followed by increasing and decreasing your workout intensity to raise and lower your heart rate for 16 more minutes and finishing with a two minute cool down.  You can do this when you run, swim, bike, or any other kind of cardiovascular workout.  The reason HIIT delivers such impressive fat-burning results is because there are several benefits to raising and lowering the heart rate repeatedly.  First, this workout burns more calories during workouts, but also during recovery time.  According to the American College of Sports Medicine, the calorie burn is 6-15% greater than other workouts.  Perhaps most importantly, HIIT workouts increase human growth hormone and testosterone.  These two hormones combined are a potent formula for building muscle at the expense of fat.  Finally, HIIT is more efficient – you can achieve a better workout in 20 minutes than most do in an hour.

In a very similar way, because of its efficiency in fat burning, there is a method of eating that is getting a great deal of attention.  Intermittent fasting may be the best way to shed excess fat and prevent the most common forms of chronic illness.  This method helps regulate your insulin by shifting your metabolism into a fat-burning state rather than and sugar-burning state.  There are several strategies for intermittent fasting, but all of them require you to take 2-3 days each week where you don’t eat for approximately 16-20 hours.  The most popular method was proposed by Dr. Crystal Varaday where you eat whatever you want every other day and you fast on the alternate days.  A more health-conscious model was proposed by a Dr. Mosley who believes it’s better to eat a diet low in sugar and processed carbs three days per week and fast on just two days.  With both of these methods, you are allowed a single 400-500 calorie meal (snack) during fasting days and only water and tea after that.

The benefits of both of these fat-burning strategies are very impressive and well researched.  If you’ve struggled with weight loss and shedding belly fat, I encourage you to learn more about both of these methods and really understand how and why they work.

Keeping Score

How do you measure wellness? For that matter, how do you even know when you are well or not? We all know people who we thought were in pretty good health that suddenly came down with terminal cancer or died of a sudden heart attack. If I feel pretty good today, but have a heart attack tomorrow, was I really healthy? The more I learn about questions and subjects like this, the more I appreciate all the work and forethought that was put into our 8 Weeks to Wellness (8WW) program. In 8WW we use a Wellness Score to evaluate wellness. This score comes with a report of numerous tests including blood tests. But unlike most tests, these aren’t necessarily looking for what’s wrong or disease processes, these tests are looking to see how you are functioning. Because, we know, that when you are functioning at or close to 100%, you don’t have illness, health problems, or even symptoms. While I don’t have room to talk about all of these tests, I would like to focus on a couple.

Perhaps your most important test is your body composition; looking at your ratio of lean muscle versus fat. In our office, we use a bio impedance analysis machine to measure this as it’s supposed to be the most precise method. But for home use, you can use a Tanita handheld device or measure skinfolds with calipers. The reason this measurement is so important is because just last year they declared this composition to be the single best predictor of biological age and longevity. What this basically means is that those carrying and maintaining the most lean muscle through life win. The ideal ranges for this measurement vary depending on age and gender, but the solution to maintaining lean muscle is around 200 minutes of exercise per week that includes strength training and a low glycemic diet with adequate protein. Another simple but potent measurement is your abdominal fat. All you need for this is a tape measure and a bellybutton. Simply measure all the way around at the level of the bellybutton and record your number. For men, this number should not exceed 40 inches and for women it should stay under 35. When this measurement comes back high, you are at significantly higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer. While exercise is important for this measurement, the solution for belly fat is largely diet. Excessive fat in the abdomen is mostly due to excessive sugar in the diet. Cut the sugar, grains, pastas, cereals, and white potatoes and you can watch the belly fat shrink away!

To learn more about the importance of a low glycemic diet, I would like to invite you all to the Red Bicycle Hall on Main Street in downtown Madison on Tuesday, September 30th at 7:00 pm. We’ve purchased the rights to show the movie “Fed Up” that is currently in theaters. This is a movie that USA Today said “Will change the way people think about eating.” If you plan on attending this impactful event, please go to the Rivertown Chiropractic Wellness Center Facebook page and find the post on “Fed Up” and click “join.” You can also call us at the office number to RSVP. This way we can tell the Hall how many people to expect. Hope to see you there!

Tea it Up

I hear many people complain that they feel like they can’t do or eat anything as it seems that everything in this world is bad for their health.  In writing these articles it’s easy to fall into that same trap and report on all the things that detract from health.  So when I come across something that actually promotes health and longevity, I try to take notice and bring it to your attention.  One of those things is Green Tea!

I hope that by now, you've heard that green tea can be effective at reducing the risk of numerous forms of cancer.  Studies vary, but on average drinking five cups daily of the antioxidant extract can reduce general cancer risk by around 50%.  You may have even heard that drinking green tea can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.  And with diabetes being the fastest growing form of chronic disease, you may want to take note that green tea helps with insulin resistance which is the very mechanism of type II diabetes.  For me, that alone is enough to seek out the stuff and drink it down.  However, recent research has discovered that green tea also has the potential to prevent and possibly even reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.  Alzheimer’s occurs as the result of your brain cells being impaired and killed from something called amyloid plaques.  Like every other degenerative process in the body, these plaques are the result of oxidative stress and free radical damage that are directly related to inflammatory diet, stress, and lack of exercise.  Before this study, the only proven method of preventing Alzheimer’s was physical exercise and consuming excessive fruits and vegetables for their antioxidant benefits.  There are only five drugs that treat the disease, but they only partially treat some of the symptoms temporarily for about half the patients who take them.  Scientist have found that green tea not only prevents the formation of amyloid plaques but can actually break down existing plaques in early development and can even promote the production of new nerve cells in the brain (which was thought to be impossible not too long ago).  These new cells were noticed in the part of the brain known as the hippocampus which is known to convert short-term information into long-term memory.  Through the use of functional MRI, the scientists of a European study were able to see changes in the brain cells with just a single dose of green tea or with just one week of green tea supplements!

I would like to clarify that the green tea we’re talking about here is not the stuff you buy at the gas station that is loaded with high fructose corn syrup.  You need to get the real thing.  In researching this, the types that consistently came up with the highest level of anti-oxidants were brands of Lonjing or Dragon Well teas.  However, I did find results from a UCLA study that claimed even the Celestial Seasonings and Lipton green teas were considered high in these same anti-oxidant levels.  In my search, I was unable to determine which brand is the best for sure, but one thing I know is that I’m going to start drinking some form of Dragon Well tea right away!

Oil Pulling

 

This week I’m fulfilling a request to write about a procedure that many think is new but in actuality goes back several thousand years in India.  The procedure is known as coconut swishing or also as oil pulling.  In the past, I’ve written about the health benefits of coconut oil.  I’ve discussed how it is a medium chain fatty acid that does not raise insulin levels and therefore can be a good source of energy because it is converted in the liver to energy rather than stored as fat.  Coconut is also beneficial for the heart, brain, and thyroid and it’s valuable for the immune system as well.  “Oil pulling” with coconut oil is done by swishing the oil in the mouth to draw out different toxins, germs, and other pathogens.

It’s long been recognized that coconut is an effective anti-viral, anti-fungal, and anti-bacterial substance.  Recent medical journals have also published research that shows the oil fights against various yeasts such as candida.  Ancient Ayurvedic texts claim that oil pulling may cure about 30 different diseases and help detoxify the entire body.  These claims are not necessarily supported by modern research, but there is a growing body of research that supports the use of coconut swishing for cleansing and healing benefits of the mouth.  Research from the Indian Journal of Dental Research states, “Oil pulling has been used for strengthening teeth, gums and jaws and to prevent decay, oral malodor, bleeding gums and dryness of throat and cracked lips.”  One of the primary mechanisms that allows coconut oil pulling to make these claims is that the research shows it is effective at killing off Streptococcus Mutans bacteria.  This is the acid producing bacteria that is known to contribute to tooth decay and plaque accumulation.

Oil pulling involves "rinsing" your mouth with the oil, much like you would with a mouthwash. The oil is "worked" around your mouth by pushing, pulling, and drawing it through your teeth optimally for a period of about 20 minutes.  You do not want to gargle. Oil pulling will work your jaw muscles as another benefit, but if yours become sore or tired you're probably "swishing" the oil too vigorously. Just relax and focus on moving the oil with your tongue as well as your jaw muscles.  When getting started, you may want to try it for just five minutes at a time. The process allows the oil to "pull out" bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other debris from your mouth. It may not sound very appetizing, but once the oil turns thin and milky white you'll know it's time to spit it out. The best time to do oil pulling is in the morning before eating breakfast, but it can be done at any time. When you're done, spit out the oil and rinse your mouth with water or a combination of water and baking soda. Avoid swallowing the oil as it will be loaded with bacteria and whatever potential toxins and debris it has pulled out.  Go buy some 100% coconut oil and try this procedure.  You should notice results within about a week.  And don’t forget about the other health benefits of eating the oil on its own – a tablespoon a day is a good start!  Thanks Andra for this recommended topic and thanks for reading every week!